Welcome to our travel blog. We are Tabitha and Nic. In 2011 we 'retired' in our early 40s and set off to travel the world. We spent our first year in South America and have been lucky enough to make two trips to Antarctica.

Our blog is a record of our travels, thoughts and experiences. It is not a guide book, but we do include some tips and information, so we hope that you may find it useful if you are planning to visit somewhere we have been. Or you may just find it interesting as a bit of armchair travel.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Horses and rabbits in London (Throwback post)

Brixton

As we were spending our time looking at areas where we might buy a new home, we spent the couple of months from mid October to just before Christmas 2013 up in London. The first place that we stayed was Brixton, which is one of those areas that many people avoid, perhaps recalling the riots in the 1980s, but in fact is quite a nice and vibrant area.

Brixton was the birthplace of David Robert Jones - aka David Bowie, and a mural inspired by the Aladdin Sane was unveiled here in 2013. The mural became a focal point for people mourning his death earlier this year.

St Paul's Cathedral

Another place that we spent some time was near to Clapham Junction. Clapham is an interesting mix of slightly down at heel, gritty areas, and the rather more genteel 'nappy valley'. We were staying very close to the Battersea Arts Centre, so were a little disappointed that there wasn't anything on that we wanted to see. Mind you, we were even more disappointed to hear, early in 2015, that it had been badly damaged in a fire.

London International Horse Show

Being busy looking around areas, we didn't really have time to fit in any sightseeing, so no posts about anything like that this time. We did take the opportunity of being in London in December, to go along to the London International Horse Show, which is something a remember going to with my grandmother, when I was a child.

London International Horse Show

We got tickets for the Puissance day, where they jump a wall that increases in height each round; by the time you get to the closing stages, the wall is so high that you can only just see the ears of the approaching horse! As well as the show jumping, they have the kids on little Shetland ponies, the agility dogs on their assault course, and this year, a display from the Spanish Riding School.

Oxford Street window display

Of course, even though any sane Londoner knows that Oxford Street is to be avoided like the plague in December, (well, most of the year really,) at least one trip is pretty much inevitable.

London South Bank

Thankfully, we have long learned some of the tricks to avoid the worst of the crowds. And we rather liked the window display that was animals made out of cleaning equipment.

Something we have always liked to do in the run up to Christmas, is to take a walk along the South Bank, where they have the German Christmas Markets. They obviously aren't as good as the originals, but they have some nice things - and I can get a proper bratwurst.

This year, they also had a series of giant white lit up rabbits watching over the Festival Hall. They were pretty fabulous.

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